“Last month, The Sun reported preliminary results of a Vancouver school board survey that found many families are leaving Vancouver due to the high cost of housing.

The purpose of the survey was to pinpoint the cause of the declining enrolments, which is bad news for school boards because fewer students means less government funding and difficult decisions about cuts to spending and closing schools.

In each of the past three years, the Vancouver school district has had a net loss of 600 to 700 students, the report shows. A typical elementary school in Vancouver has about 300 children.

Tracking where the students who left Vancouver schools went isn’t easy; there is no central source of this information.

Ministry of Education figures show a drop of about 10,000 students in all B.C. schools between 2008 and 2013, which could be attributed to people having smaller families, people moving out of the province or other factors.

While it may be difficult to pinpoint exactly where Vancouver’s students are going, at least some of them are heading to the eastern suburbs.

Catherine Cowan and husband Trevor are among those families, moving to Heritage Mountain in Port Moody from Burnaby in 2006, primarily because of the lower cost of housing but also for the town’s livability, good schools and community feel. Before moving to Burnaby, they lived in Vancouver.

“We bought a townhouse (in Port Moody) in 2006, sold it in 2011 and bought a house. We couldn’t have done that in Vancouver. Absolutely not.”

“I can’t believe it!
My neighbor and his wife, who are in their late 60s, just put their house on the market.
I talked to them often before, and they said they would die in that house and leave it to their only son.
But now they say they are worried that with the housing market going south they may be losing a lot of equity and they better sell now before it gets worse.
To make matters worse, 1 year ago they took out a HELOC for $30k to help their son buy a condo.
Two week’s ago their son received a note from his strata that a special levy of $40k to cover inefficiences in the building envelope has to be paid.
Another leaky condo!
Needless to say, the old couple has no other assets than their rapidly depreciating house, so they are panicking.”
– Real Estate Tsunami at VREAA 23 May 2013 10:53pm

Hello again to all readers.
Posts recommence with this powerful anecdote from RETsunami.
We will aim to pop up anecdotes here on an occasional and irregular basis; we trust they will be appreciated nonetheless.
Keep well.
– vreaa

“I was in a Starbucks in Kits today listening to two very Vancouver ladies talking RE. They were talking about two couples they knew who had recently bought a lot and planned to each build a house on it and live as neighbours. These ladies were concerned because one of the couples were heavy pot smokers. They wondered how the other couple would feel having clouds of dope smoke wafting in through the open windows on warm summer evenings. I just looked at my wife, who had been listening intently as well and whispered TWEB (This Will End Badly).”
– lexlimo at VREAA 4 April 2013 7:17 pm

“One of the rarely discussed consequences of the huge RE price inflation in Vancouver has been the separation of the extended family.
My own adult children have left their home city (Vancouver) partly because of better opportunities elsewhere, but mainly because of the ridiculous cost of housing. The dream of raising a family in a single family home in Vancouver is an illusion. Their options are to commute hours a day or live in a box.
Well over half my friends are in the same boat. Their children have left Vancouver. They are raising their own families in other cities and other countries. My neighborhood looks nothing like it did even ten years ago. The neighbors don’t say hi to each other and the traditional cultural events in the community are gone.
I loved my city. It’s still beautiful (when the sun shines). But now, I find it kind of lonely and hollow.”
– Uwinsome at greaterfool.ca 11 Mar 2013 11:23pm [hat-tip Bob G]

Excellent comment.
A city does best when RE is reasonably priced; when the cost of shelter is not an excessive hurdle to young industrious individuals either remaining here or moving here.
The speculative mania has pushed RE to prices that are two to three times reasonable values, and has consequently forced people away from Vancouver; it has been a deeply destructive force.
– vreaa

A related anecdote, previously headlined here:“I think about my own home that I bought in 2000, it’s worth about four times what I paid for it now. … I have four kids, three in their twenties and one in their thirties, and they’re never going to be able to afford to live in Vancouver because they’re not already in the market.”
– Peter Ladner (former candidate for mayor), Shaw cable TV interview, 25 May 2011

“Went to two house-warmings this week. Both in South Surrey.
While we were there we were bombarded with how great Surrey is and we should consider moving there. With close to an hour commute each way to downtown, no thanks.
Even though the townhouses were cheap (in today’s market anyways: you can get a brand new 3/4 br for the price of 1 br in the city), I was not at all enticed.
Previously, after a house warming I would feel like wow maybe I should just bite the bullet and go buy, not anymore. After the new house smell goes away, I realized how house poor all these people have become, and really their lifestyles are not any better than mine, perhaps even worse with all that extra commuting.
One thing I noticed is that no one talks about home prices going up anymore, that was different from a year ago. They now talk about how expensive Vancouver is and prices will drop there, but not where they live because it is so cheap already how can it drop. I guess they think it will always be other people’s problems.”
– 4SlicesofCheese at VREAA 10 Mar 2013 10:04am

“A close friend of our family has been a Westside realtor for nearly 20 years. A few weeks ago, while talking about a completely unrelated matter, he suddenly asked if we knew anyone who might be interested in his $2 million listing. Never before in 20 years has he tried to drum up business from us. We know a total of zero people with a spare $2 million, so this was completely ridiculous and seemed rather telling.”
– Sheesh at VREAA 19 Feb 2013 11:16am

“My land-lady who is a very good friend of [a Vancouver realtor] tells me that there are no buyers coming – she says market is very bad… very obvious to anyone who actually uses their brain… but quite an admission from someone who has been a part of this giant scam.”
– vancouverbubbleman at VREAA 14 Feb 2013 3:30pm

“When prices become unaffordable, demand should come down. At least that is what I’m hoping for, in the short to medium term, so I can buy my daughter a decent size condo in Vancouver when she graduates from UBC next year. Even if she can find a good job after graduation she will never be able to afford home ownership without my help. Renting is obviously a viable alternative if condo prices in Vancouver don’t come down. Or she can just return home and stay with me, my wife and our dog :)”
– comment by Simple Living at The Globe and Mail, 11 Dec 2012, 12:54am

Later on in the same thread ‘Simple Living’ adds:“If I can afford to pay cash up to $1 million for a condo for my only daughter, it’s my choice and it still is simple living by my standard.” &“$200,000 a year combined income will not buy you much of a condo in Vancouver at present, let alone a house. That’s why property prices in Vancouver right now are beyond what most working class people can afford. As soon as mortgage rates go up, a lot of over extended home owners will be in serious trouble.”